Disclaimer: sorry to everyone who follow me for my recipes. I am not strictly a recipe blog. I post random things on my mind and off topic all the time. If that is, solely, why you follow me, just skip on over this post!
I heard this song, Why by Rascal Flatts, for the first time today and just couldn’t believe how it, perfectly, expressed so many of my thoughts surrounding my sister. For those who don’t know, my sister, Dinah, took her own life about 1.5 years ago. It feels like yesterday. Her boyfriend was very tragically killed in an automobile accident by a drunk motorcyclist who ran a red light. The next day, my sister became overwhelmed with grief, confusion, and darkness. I know that if she was thinking straight and could have a “do-over”, she wouldn’t have done this. It leaves so many questions behind for the family. There never feels like there is comfort at all in her death. Fate didn’t take her. Sickness didn’t take her. She took herself and in doing so, she took everything.
The death of mega-church pastor Rick Warren’s son has ripped open my Dinah-wound. His son at 27 years old made the ultimate decision to take his own life after dealing with depression for many, many years. My heart aches for the family because I know the pain and depth of their sorrow. My sister was 27 years old too…almost done with college…and was the happiest I had seen her in a long time.
I love God and I have a great relationship with him. But I do not love the church. In fact, I have so much hurt over the church that there are some places I cannot even go. My question is…when is the church gonna put down their ridiculous mask’s and start doing something? The church has lost it’s practical side and has stopped extending Jesus’ hands and started extending promises of prayers. Prayers are great…but they don’t cut it. Jesus got his hands dirty and touched prostitutes and lepers and mentally ill and depressed people. Who are we reaching out and touching? Bible studies and care groups and home groups only reach out to each other. When are our hands going to open from our little circles of “groups” and reach out to the orphans, the prostitutes, the widows, the hopeless?
When someone is struggling with thoughts of suicide, promises of prayer and intercession are almost laughable! They need more than that. We have people sitting in the pews that are literally screaming for help and you can see it in there eyes! LOOK at them. Don’t look away…look at people in the eyes and you will see the pain. Where is the church? I don’t know the answers, but I do know that something needs to be done to reach out to the lost a little bit better. We need to show more love, instead of judgment. We need to extend grace, instead of gossiping about someone’s shortcomings.
My sister was shunned by her church and her workplace because she went through a divorce. What kind of love is that? I just can’t keep quiet about this lack of grace and love the church has taken on. When will we start to see people again, instead of their failures? When will we start to get dirty again, wrap ourselves in each other’s life mess, instead of avoiding people with too much drama? Why do we think that getting messing in love is any different than what Jesus did? Weren’t His words something like this…
“He who is without sin may cast the first stone.”
I need Jesus friends. I’ve wasted my time with fake friends who run when life gets dirty. What a waste of time! Life is about getting through the crap together.
We, desperately, need help in today’s world. Where is the church?
Why by Rascal Flatts (listen to it on youtube here)
It must’ve been in a place so dark you couldn’t feel the light
Reachin’ for you through that stormy cloud
Now here we are gathered in our little hometown
This can’t be the way you meant to draw a crowd
Oh, why? That’s what I keep askin’
Was there anything I could have said or done?
Oh, I had no clue you were masking
A troubled soul, God only knows what went wrong
And why you’d leave the stage in the middle of a song
Now in my mind I keep you frozen as a seventeen year old
Roundin’ third to score the winning run
You always played with passion no matter what the game
When you took the stage, you shined just like the sun
Oh, why? That’s what I keep askin
‘And was there anything I could have said or done?
Oh, I had no clue you were masking
A troubled soul, oh, God only knows what went wrong
And why you’d leave the stage in the middle of a song
Now the oak trees are swayin’ in the early autumn breeze
The golden sun is shining on my face
The tangled thoughts I hear a mockingbird sing
This old world really ain’t that bad a place
Oh, why? There’s no comprehending
And who am I to try to judge or explain?
Oh, but I do have one burning question
Who told you life wasn’t worth the fight?
They were wrong, they lied, and now you’re gone, and we cried
‘Cause it’s not like you to walk away in the middle of a song
Your beautiful song, your absolutely beautiful song
